The story concerns new evidence that the Americas weren’t colonized by a single wave of migration, but several, and that those waves probably occurred some time before 13,000 years ago. It’s a topic that fascinates me.

At the time we’re talking about, Earth — especially North America — was still a frigid place. To reach the present-day lower 48 states, consider the hazards wandering groups would have faced. They likely came one of two ways:

1.Land route: This would have involved walking across a narrow land bridge from Siberia to Alaska, some of which was ice free. But only by about 13,000 years ago was an ice-free corridor east of the Rocky Mountains finally opening up. So anyone coming before this time would have had to cross massive ice fields, very likely devoid of game. This sort of thing killed Robert F. Scott a century ago in Antarctica.

2.Coastal route: This would have required long spells in boats on the Pacific Ocean, passing little but ice cliffs for long stretches as the travelers rowed along the Alaskan and Canadian coasts. This could not have been an easy path in what likely were dugout boats.

These would have unquestionably been long, harrowing ordeals. My question is, why did they come? And really, how did they survive such an ordeal?

I think the answers partly come from understanding that early homo sapiens, and their immediate ancestors, were more hardy, resilient and intelligent than we give them credit for.

There’s evidence of early humans living in Siberia more than 260,000 years ago, using stone tools, and surviving in an incredibly inhospitable climate. There are also clues from millions of years ago that primates — direct ancestors to hominins — may have lived in cooperative rather than competitive societies. If primates were human-like more than 7 million years ago, is it a stretch to believe that homo sapiens living 15,000 or 20,000 years ago were capable of great feats?

I think it is not. And, yet, it is amazing.

Consider that the Romans, for all their brilliant engineering, never reached the new world. The Vikings almost certainly did, albeit tentatively. It took Europeans nearly 600 years from the time of Charlemagne, sometimes called the father of Europe, to Columbus before the first steps toward colonizing the new world began.

And to think small bands of humans probably did the same thing, possibly even in less time, 15,000 years ago.

No imposters here, Hunter – just my eternally skeptical self. I don’t think evolution is observed. I don’t think there is anyway it can be observed because it supposedly happens over millions of years. Also, I think you are confusing adaptation with evolution, and yes, I understand the two may be intertwined, but I do not think evolution has answered where we came from or why. There is no direct fossil record linking our ancesters to apes and there could be several reasons:

1. It doesn’t exist.

2. We just haven’t found it.

I’m going with number one.

As for the gravity and evolution analogy there is a big difference. Even though we don’t understand all the mechanisms involved in gravity, it can be mathmatically modeled. Evolution, however, cannot be modeled or predicted because it is rooted in chaos.

*** The genomics are taken much more seriously today than the older forms of evidence.

The older problems associated with the gaping holes in the fossil record as well as the arbitrariness and glaring absurdities of the older physical taxonomy don’t play the central role in the discussion they once played.

*** Of course, like the fossil record and the older taxonomy, the genomics have been to some extent interpreted according to fundamentalist dogmas of Darwinism

— and this has produced distortions and absurdities in the interps of the genomics similar to the older distortions and absurdities found in the interps of the fossils and the taxonomy.

*** But look, wNf!

The real problem is with the distortion of the authentic science into Scientism and the pathetic simian materialism which accompanies it

— and not with “evolutionary theory”, per se.

*** For example, the massively incomplete image of the human being we see when we look at the fragmentary picture of humans painted by evolutionary biology

— a picture that is so absurdly incomplete that it appears as a perverse cartoon caricature of the human being to most educated people, rather than as a product of science

— is simply an unavodiable result of the very practical method of artificially reducing the field of reality under study to natural science in the first instance, and then down again to those sciences within natural science related to the study of evolution

— we do this to gain detail, and most of us are aware that by doing so, we don’t actually abolish the other 95% of human Reality, we just ignore it for a moment

— in fact, the fragmentary disreality which is the result of this artificial reduction disappears as soon as we simply re-introduce the 95% of human reality we have artificially removed, including such areas such as:

— human history, economics, sociology, politics, etc etc etc

— and of course human thought, spirituality, mental experience, and so forth

— each of which is not merely related in various ways to the natural sciences, but is also the “subject of study” of its own set of authentic sciences.

To get back on topic, I was addressing you above over the focus of evolution on genomics and how this has affected the discussion.

The genomics are being interpreted through the doctrine or dogma of “universal common descent”, a pattern-based speculation which looks for a universal common ancestor through a from of applied pareidolia.

I bow to your knowledge of this field ttyler5. I have not paid that much attention to it for many years. In fact the last prominent finding I remember was a small piece of skull plate from which the researchers were trying to construct an entire “early” man. I thought it was a bit of a stretch.

I like the multiple origins theory theory best and looking at our similarities with apes it only seems reasonable that we share a taxonomic family, but I don’t know how.

BTW, the best way I have found to deal with the rudeness of some pwople on this blog is to simply never acknowledge them at all, not even if I agree with them on a particular item.

This post is in the archives now, so I hope you read it, but if not I’ll enjoy chatting with you in the other posts.

If you don’t like having your ideas challenged you should not post them on a blog. I also respectfully suggest that Eric will be the one to decide whether or not I am welcome here. I also think that since this is a science blog it is fairly logical that those who prefer religious explanations to scientific explanations are going to have their belief challenged.

I suppose you are trying to insult me in some childish way, but it really does not work on me. If you want to stay comfortable in your own belief system I think you will find live easier if you stick to the church and religious blogs. If you choose to participate in a science blog such as this you can only expect other people to disagree with you on a regular basis…

Now, Eric if you wish me to leave because I am a monkey I shall take my bananas with me and fling poo at pseudo-science from another tree…

Please realize this is a forum for people with diverse views, and there will be disagreements from time to time. How those disagreements are dealt with will tell others a lot about those making the comments.

I was not trying to insult you. I was pointing out that what you were describing is not science. If the word turd is really that insulting to you I sincerely apologize for causing offense. I will happily re-phrase my post to say that it doesn’t matter how nicely you put ID or creationism in words it is complete nonsense and has nothing to do with science but is simply a religious viewpoint.

Nevertheless, I stand by my point that being called a ultra darwinist atheist is probably the biggest compliment you could make me and I thank you for it.